As I’ve noted before, when you’re not playing action games, the killer GPU in your PC is basically a case heater. For the most part, it uselessly sucks power and radiates heat as you perform mundane computing tasks: web browsing, word processing, spreadsheet calculations, MP3 playback. GPUs are the most underutilized resource in PCs.

Finally, that’s changing. AMD now bundles its ATI Stream parallel-processing software in the latest ATI Catalyst graphics drivers. As users download and install these free drivers, they automatically prep their systems to run ATI Stream programs that leverage the GPU as a massively parallel processor. Before, users had to download ATI Stream separately. AMD is following Nvidia, which began bundling its CUDA parallel-processing software with display drivers in 2007.

Although ATI Stream and CUDA are for programmers, anyone can use the application software written for these platforms. When you install and run an ATI Stream or CUDA application, it automatically executes on the x86 CPU and on the GPU, which does the heavy lifting. Most people won’t notice anything different—except better performance.

I’m currently debating whether to install XP x64 or Vista x64 on my main rig. I will be playing a lot of games, including Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and Far Cry 2, and doing some video editing with Sony Vegas and Adobe After Effects. I’ve tried Vista x64, but issues with Creative soundcards have haunted me for the past week and a half. I still haven’t tried XP x64, but I’ve heard that there’s less support for it compared to Vista x64. I’ve already confirmed that some of my crucial programs do run on XP x64, but what about devices like the printer and camera? I have an E8400 overclocked to 4GHz, 8GB of G.Skill RAM, and an ATI Radeon HD 4850.

Read onto find out the answer to Miguel's question!

I’m having trouble formatting my C: drive. When I right-click my drive and try to format it, I get an error telling me that it can’t format when other applications are running. I’ve uninstalled everything that I could and it still won’t let me format. Is my hard drive shot or just corrupt? I don’t have my restore disc.